The Gray Plague
by JaharJones
Summary: Brother and Sister, Alec and Jillian, find themselves trying to fight the day to day battle of surviving the zombie apocalypse. Can their close relationship with one another be enough to keep themselves and their family alive, or will they succumb to the brutality of the new world like so many others have before them? (Please comment or review this piece so the author can improve)
1. IntroChapter 1

**The Gray Plague by Jahar_Jones**

**Intro:**

The plague began like any other of its kind, a few people here and there coming down with a mysterious illness and then dying, not much thought was given to it and life continued on. Over the course of a few weeks, people all around the globe were reported of vicious attacks against their friends, spouses, children, or random bystanders on the street. These attacks, spread throughout the news like wildfire, but no one paid it much heed and, again, life continued on. One month after these reports, all seemed well until, like a bomb, the plague rampaged everywhere. In every country, every city, every town, people were being maliciously killed by others for no apparent reason at all. These attackers began their onslaught by extreme mood swings and then by scratching and biting their victims persistently until they killed the victim, they then began to feed on the flesh of those that they had just killed. Panic spread everywhere as no one knew who was infected or when someone would rage and attack, the world was thrown into a state of chaos. From looting, vandalism, and assault, people all around the globe began to riot out in fear of their lives and they began to take what they thought was necessary to survive. Scientists began to call the virus "The Gray Plague" for it turned the skin and the eyes of those infected to a pale, undead gray color. The scientists promised an answer to a cure and had promised relief to the survivors, however, no help came and, within a few weeks after the plague spread everywhere, everyday life stopped dead in its tracks, leaving the uninfected to fend for themselves in a world of chaos.

Three Months Later…

**Chapter One: **

I awake to the sound of screaming in the streets, just another poor, reckless victim succumbed to the walker's onslaught. Walkers, I think to myself as I had just come up with that name, sounds like a good title to give those freaks out there. I get out of bed and pull on a pair of jeans with a black shirt and I begin to fasten the laces on my boots. Three months ago, I would be sleeping in, taking a shower, and then heading off to school, most likely arriving late, however, I can't do that now in the current situation. After I get dressed, I leave my room and head downstairs to make sure that the front door is bolted tight and that the windows are blocking out any outside view satisfied, I go to wake up my sister to get a jump on the day.

"Good morning Sunshine!" I say as I enter her room.

"I really hate you in the mornings Alec." Jillian half-heartedly retorts as I slam down onto her bed. Me a Jillian have always had a close relationship that most siblings don't have, and it also helps that we are only a year apart, Jillian being the eldest at 19, so we can find common interests easier.

I give Jillian a big embrace as I usually do when we survive another night and say to her, "I know you may hate me now, but what will you do without me since you can't cook to save your life?" and it's true, she is the worst cook imaginable while I have been graced with cooking,

"I would resort to eating people like the Grays do" she says with a little breezy laugh "But, let's not waste the day away, we need to get some more supplies from the other houses again" Jillian says, this time with a more serious tone. I leave her room to let her get ready and I go back upstairs to my room to get my gear.

Our house is a classic two story house situated in the small town of Lennon, Michigan. Lennon, is a rural town with a lot of farmland and has nothing particularly interesting in it except for a Speedway and a little café. When the plague hit, Lennon was better off than most due to its small size and its distance from the cities, however, that does not mean that our town didn't suffer. Out of its probably 500-600 residents, only a handful of people survived and they stick to themselves these days. The next closest town to Lennon is Durand, which is about 12 miles away and had about 2,000 people but, me and Jillian are not willing enough to risk going there to see how many people are still alive. Finally, about 30 miles from where we are is the city of Flint. Flint is on the red zone in mine a Jillian's book meaning that in no circumstance are we to go there. Flint was a big city and got hit hard in the initial outbreak of the virus and was already one of the most dangerous cities in the United States, so Flint is out of the picture for me and my sister.

Before I reach my room, I take a quick glance out of the upstairs window to look at the walker activity in the area before I decide it is safe to head outside but, I only see a few of them shambling about in the street so I am not too worried about our venture. I go into my room and strap on a bulletproof vest that I received from my father back when he was a police officer for Lennon and I put on my utility belt. Next, I open my nightstand drawer and pull out a small pistol, I put the pistol in a holster in my belt and make sure that it is secure in the loop. Closing the drawer, I reach to the side of my bed and grab a small hatchet and I also get a machete from the shelf hanging over my bed, I slide both of these into loops on my belt and I exit my room, closing the door behind me. Content with my arsenal, I head to Jillian's room, knock, and enter and see her readying her weapons as well, I notice her slinging a bow and a quiver of arrows onto her back and I watch her retrieve a homemade double-sided spear from her closet that she had found on one of our scavenges.

"You ready to kick some walker ass?" I joke to her in the most playful of manners.

"No," Jillian replies, "I am ready to sneak past some grays, find some Lucky Charms, and haul ass back home." I give her a smile and we head to the front door. I open the door and we quietly exit the house, closing the door behind us, and we head into town.

Jillian and I lightly jog for about half a mile before we reach the subdivision that we agreed on searching. Scanning the area, I notice about 5 walkers in various spots, shambling around aimlessly, waiting for a foolish victim to kill.

"Should we take care of them?" I whisper to Jillian as we take cover behind an abandoned car,

"I'm not sure, they aren't really doing any harm to us right now, let just see if we can sneak past them and if they do try to attack, we will deal with them then k'?"

"Sounds good to me," I reply "Just get ready to shoot that bow of yours."

"Gladly." Jillian says to me with a grin. In high school, Jillian was a competitive archer so she knows her way around a bow pretty well and, with some razor sharp hunting arrows we found, she managed to turn her hobby into a useful survival skill.

We stealth around the car with weapons drawn and head for the nearest house to us. Approaching the door of the blue house we had chosen, I use my knife to quietly pry open the door, it opens, and we enter carefully shutting the door behind us. Jillian and I find ourselves in the living room and we take a quick glace of our surroundings. I notice a large TV in front of a black leather couch and I notice a computer in the corner of the room. On the wall to the right of us there are two archways leading to the kitchen and to a family room and, next to the TV on the left, there are stairs leading upstairs. This family must have been pretty well off due to their possessions, however, I feel a pang of sympathy for raiding their house. Without word, Jillian and I quietly head to the upstairs where we find a man in his mid forties sitting on the ground, his skin as gray as a storm cloud. Immediately, the man (walker) starts to crawl towards us, his eyes devoid of life and his face only showing the animalistic expression of hunger.

"Should I deal with him?" Jillian asks me

"No, I can handle this one." I say back to her partly because I am closer and partly because I still feel some brother protection over her and I don't want her to have to do such a grim task. Taking my hatchet, I kick the walker down as he tries to get up at us and I tell him that I'm sorry that this happened to him and, without further hesitation I burry the weapon into his skull, ending his suffering.

We search the rest of the upstairs and find some odds and ends that will have some use to us later but we do not find any other walkers, however. I head downstairs with Jillian trailing behind me but, instead of finding the empty living room, I find something entirely different.

"Well, well boys, What have we here?" says the voice of a man.

I turn towards the voice and find something that I had feared would happen. In front of me stands five men, all of different ages, brandishing weapons ranging from knives, clubs, bats, and axes. I instinctively step in front of Jillian to protect her but, I fear that it will not be enough and that only a miracle can save us now.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two:**

The five men in front of us stare and smirk at us. From what I can tell in my frantic state, they all appear to be in their 20's or 30's, the majority covered in tattoos, and all with an unremorseful look in their eye. Now that I think on it, they may be from some of the various gangs throughout Shiawassee county (The area where Lennon, Durand, and some other towns are located in). Normally, these gangs pose little to no threat other than the usual drug trade and petty crimes, however, now that the worlds gone to shit, they must feel like nothing can stop them since there is no such thing as law enforcement anymore.

"What the hell do you two kids think you are doing in our territory?" says a white man carrying two hammers. He appears to be in his early forties and I presume that he is the leader of his gang due to the fact that the other four men are behind him, blocking our way to escape.

I stare at the man in dismay, a thousand things running through my mind, but I manage to say a response to him. I stammer, "We were just trying to get some supplies. My sister and I didn't know that this was your guy's area."

"Oh! You didn't know that this was our area!" The man retorts and then goes on to say, "Let me tell you, you little brat. This whole fucking town is our area, and you have the audacity to tell me that you didn't know?"

"We swear, we had no idea!" I plea in response, hoping that he would understand.

"Sounds to me that you are a liar you little shit." Says a burly black man in the back of the group.

"Lay off of my brother you jack asses." Jillian boldly says to them with her bow drawn, an arrow knocked onto it.

The men all begin to laugh raucously as their leader says, "Oh! Look here boys! We got ourselves a feisty one. Let's see if she can keep that act up with us later."

"Shut the hell up!" Jillian yells at them and I find myself just standing there, my mouth wide open in awe of my sister's courage. Drawing her bow back, Jillian takes aim at a guy in the back of the crowd and, getting a better look at him, I notice that he appears to be the same age as us, 17, 18, 19, and he looks scared shitless like I am making me wonder if he is being forced into this or if he is just a coward.

"You don't want to do that little lady," the leader sneers, "Sure, you may be able to get one, maybe two shots on us depending on how good you are, but, you are outnumbered and, plus I have this little beauty." At first, Jillian and I stare at him wondering what is so scary about a hammer but, he suddenly pulls out a pistol from his back pocket, making my heart drop. Shit, I think to myself, there is no way out of this, un phased, however, Jillian continues on.

"At least that means there are two more fuckheads out of this already shitty world, and yes, I am that good so who knows, maybe I could get three of you and then, the sound of you shooting me leads to you attracting the Walkers in the area, the remaining two of you would be dead before you know it so go on, try me." Jillian boldly says without a hint of quavering in her confidence, I just hope she isn't going to gamble our lives away.

"Sis, what the hell are you doing," I whisper to her, "are you trying to get us killed after mom and dad sacrificed themselves to save us?"

" Trust me Alec, I've got this." She whispers back without a hint of doubt in her voice, I remain dubious on how she expects to get us out of here though.

"Hey, did I say you two could talk?" the leader says, "I getting pretty damn impatient right now so you have ten seconds to drop your weapons and put your hands behind your back before I shoot, starting with your wimpy ass brother right there." The man flaunts his gun in my direction as if to get his point across.

"To hell with you." Jillian snarls, holding her ground. I get a tighter grip on my hatchet and I begin to pull out my knife when, I remember something that boosts my confidence. I remember that I brought my gun along and, even though it is clearly on my side, no one had noticed it yet, thank you God! With this new advantage, I take a step back and turn my side away from them discretely before anyone notices the gun. Now, how do I draw it without getting shot first?

"Fuck this shit," says an unintelligible man carrying an ax, "Just shoot the fuckers and get it over with."

"No!" the leader bellows, clearly annoyed, "We have no idea if they have others and we can use them as bait if something happens so, shut your trap and don't you dare speak another idiotic thing again or I will feed you to the Grays out there piece by piece." This instantly shuts the man up and it shakes me a little knowing that this guy doesn't screw around, even with his own teammates. The two men begin to argue giving me the chance I have been waiting for. I whisper to Jillian a quick plan.

"Shoot one of them, any of them, with your bow and then dive into the staircase, I have a plan, don't ask questions, just do it." I quickly whisper to her and she gives a curt nod in agreement. "Wait for my signal."

While they are distracted, I draw my knife and ready my hatchet. I used to train with it by throwing it into trees for fun so, I hope that it works now. Without further hesitation I gather every last bit of courage that I have left and yell, "Now Jillian!"

"What the he-" begins one of the men, a tall, muscular white man in his late twenties, but he is quickly silenced when Jillian releases and arrow and it skewers itself in the man's throat with a burst of red. He falls to his knees and begins to convulse. Before they regroup, I quickly aim and throw my hatchet at one of the men, the idiotic man who was just arguing with the leader, where it luckily buries itself in his chest. The man looks at me and then at the weapon lodged in his chest and, without any more movements, he topples forward with a pool of blood beginning to spread around him.

"Fuck!" screams the leader, "Teach him and his bitch of a sister not to screw with us!"

Jillian manages to release another arrow but, in the chaos of it all, it only hits the leader in the knee, causing him to howl in anguish. We bolt up the stairs just as he fires his gun, the bullet hitting the wall where I would have been.

"Go, go, go!" I yell to Jillian as we run up the stairs. I draw my gun and my knife and Jillian draws her spear. We go into the nearest doorway, waiting to ambush whoever comes up.

The only thug to come up the stairs, however, is the burly black guy, the teenager nowhere to be seen. As he walks past the doorway, I jump out and attempt to stab him with my knife but he hits me aside like I was nothing. I slam into the wall hard with my shoulder and crumple onto the ground in pain. The brute then pulls out a baseball bat spiked with nails and swings for Jillian, she blocks it with her spear, but it gets thrown aside in the process, leaving her defenseless. Before he gets another swing, I quickly stab him in the thigh and go on to elbow him in the face. He gets a couple of punches on me and then, in rage, grabs my neck and begin to put pressure on it.

"Let go you piece of shit!" I scream in a frenzy and I try to kick him. The man looks into my eyes and just laughs.

"Your all bark and no bite you little fly." He sneers at me, "Say goodbye to your sister." The man begins to choke me with all his force but, before I am about to black out, his eyes go wide and he drops me. Gasping for breath, I just stare in wonder when I notice Jillian's spear sticking out of his back. He turns around to look at Jillian's savage face and, for some reason, eerily laughs like a madman. Jillian kicks him to the ground, driving the spear through his chest cavity more, he lets out a breath of air, and finally dies.

"Holy shit Alec! Are you alright?" Jillian embraces me but puts a lot of pressure on my shoulder making me cry out. "Shit, sorry."

" It's fine," I say hugging her back, "There are still two douche bags downstairs to take care of." Without another word, we go downstairs to finish off the leader and the scared teenager.

When we get to the bottom step, we see the leader is on the ground holding his knee, the arrow on the ground next to him. Idiot, I think to myself. Jillian's arrows are barbed hunting arrows so they are going to do more damage pulling them out than leaving them in and, the scumbag did the worst thing he could at the moment, rendering him incapacitated on the ground with nothing left of a knee.

" You fucking cowards!" the man shrieks with all the venom he has. "Come fight me! I'll kill you two if it's the last thing I do!" The leader draws his gun on us but, before he can fire, Jillian looses an arrow into his hand causing him to scream and drop the gun.

"You bitch! I'll kill you, I'll fucking kill you!" The man snarls at Jillian.

"Oh for the love of god, shut up." I say as I walk up and burry my knife in his skull, rendering him a worthless husk. "Teach you to fuck with us." I mumble, turning the phrase he said against him.

The remaining thug, the scared, useless teenager, drops the knife he was carrying and raises his arms. "Please! Please don't kill me! I ain't done nothing, they forced me into it, I swear." He drops to his knees and begins pleading for his life.

I retrieve my hatchet from the man that it killed and Jillian retrieves her arrows. "Why shouldn't we burry and ax or an arrow in your coward ass self? You have ten seconds to give me a good reason before I assume that you are of no use to us." I say to the kid as I begin severing the heads from all of the dead bodies to strike fear into the kid.

"Doon't, doooon't kill me please!" he stammers.

"Time is ticking." I reply as I cut off another head.

"For the love of god! I'm just a kid, please I'm only sixteen!"

He is younger than I assumed, I think to myself before I say, "We are barely adults ourselves and you and your group were going to just kill us or worse. What makes you think I have any remorse for you and your piece of shit gang?" I go on to say, "I reckon time is all but over now." I begin to draw my hatchet back for a blow when he surprisingly says;

"Stop! I'll tell you where are base is! We have information of a cure in Atlanta. The piece of shit virus hasn't apparently spread down south."

"Atlanta?" Jillian questions before I can. "What makes you think Atlanta is any safer than Michigan or, for that matter, the rest of the goddamn world?" I can tell that Jillian is pissed because she is swearing a lot more, which she only does when she is extremely ticked.

"It's is just a rumor we heard from some survivors in Flint. It is the best shot we've got plus, don't you think that the heat won't do some harm to the undead bastards down? Even a bit?"

I contemplate what he just said. If it's true, then there might be hope for me and Jillian and we can finally be safe. We just need to get to Atlanta and… I drop the subject as it is a lot to take in at the moment and say, "Where are you held up?" I demand.

"In the garden shop about three miles from here." He says almost a little bit too at ease. The garden shop that he is talking about is Krupp's. It is a statue/garden emporium that almost gets no business, however, it manages to stay aloft which makes people rumor in my school about it being a drug dealership on the side. If they are held up there, they could easily have control of a main intersection on the road and they could fortify the shop with all of the heavy pieces of concrete and wood lying, they could be a bigger problem than I originally thought. I walk over to Jillian, she is cleaning off her arrows on the shirt of one of the decapitated dead guys. I ask her;

"Should we let him walk?"

"So he can go and bring back his goons after us? There is no way in hell I'm going to let that happen." She responds without looking up from cleaning her arrows.

"I dunno, he seems like he is telling the truth and he is worthless enough that he might be being forced into it. I say we let him walk but without anything but the clothes on his back." I respond.

"Whatever," Jillian replies almost a little too uncaringly, it makes me wonder how she is holding up after all of this, "it is your choice."

"Thanks sis, I know this is the best alternative than death." I walk up to the kid and kick his knife away, he retreats back against the wall and cowers. "Oh for the love of god! Quit being such a pansy ass bitch, we're letting you go." I say to him as I slap him on the back of the head.

"Really! Oh my god! I don't even know how to thank you, I-" he grabs my shoe as if praising me which I quickly pull back from, I cut him off before he continues.

"But, you are leaving here without any weapons and you are to go in the opposite direction of here, not towards Krupp's or that gang. If I find out that you go back to them and you tell them about us I will personally hunt you down, break your legs, and throw you to the Walkers." I say this to him with a sense of seriousness in my voice though I don't know how long I can maintain this facade. I open the front door, noticing that the walkers in the area are nowhere to be seen, I guess the jerks did us a favor. I continue, "If you say another word or complain I will kill you right here, you have 5 seconds to get your ass out of this house before I blow your head off." I pull out my gun and wave it like his leader did to prove my point. Without another word, the boy scrambles out of the house like a madman, about to run in the direction towards Krupp's, he looks back at me, remembers my warning, and runs the opposite direction of it. Relieved of having survived, I drop my tough guy act and go over to Jillian.

"Are you alright?" I say in the softest voice I can.

"Yeah," she replies, "I don't really want to talk about it now, can we just get our stuff and head home?"

"Of course Jill, let's get out of here." I give her a hug, grab the supplies we dropped and Jillian's hand, and start heading for the door.

"Alec." Jillian says to me as we are about to leave.

"Yeah?" I ask.

"Thanks for having my back."

"Anytime," I say, "We only have each other now and I will go through anything to keep you safe."

"Thanks little bro." She says, barely audible, I nod in response.

Without another word, we grab our things and leave the house without looking back. As we begin to jog, I think to myself how ruthless we became back there. To think that there are people like that or even worse than that out there makes me shudder. I hope, when the time comes, we can retain what last bit of humanity we have left in this hellish nightmare of a world.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three:**

When Jillian and I return home, the sky is beginning to darken as the world starts winding down. We get inside the house and I quickly close the door and lock it in fear of pursuers or Walkers. I turn and head to the kitchen to organize the supplies we gathered, Jillian follows, sets down the stuff she collected and, without a world heads straight to her room and shuts the door. Great, I think to myself, I hope she didn't get messed up too bad from that, I will talk to her later.

"Let's see," I mutter to myself as I begin to make a list of our provisions, making lists is something I have always been OCD about and the apocalypse isn't going to change that now. I start taking inventory of what we have in our house plus what we just scavenged.

Provisions

27 rolls of toilet paper

6 gallons of water

2 24-packs of water bottles

Enough toiletries to last forever…

3 bottles of fruit juice

18 canned goods, 30 miscellaneous dry goods

Several other random food items

First aid kits, medicine, matches, candles

35 assorted batteries

I look at the list and begin to worry on our current food situation. We have enough water to last a while, however, fiftyish dry/canned goods can only last two people a couple of weeks, even if we ration it. I sigh in dismay, you would think that when almost 3/4's of the world's population is dead, there would be enough food to go around for years but no, idiotic looters and gangs had to go an burn down the majority of the supermarkets in this area for shits and giggles, dumb asses, I think. I begin to wrack my brain on where I can find some more food. Most of the houses down our street have already been looted by me a Jillian as well as others, and with the road getting more and more dangerous as we head away from home, I don't see any safe way to get more provisions until the gang at Krupp's is dealt with and, they must be pretty pissed that their guys haven't come back yet. I continue to think of places to go until it is half past nine when I finally force myself to give it a rest and to go to bed. I will continue thinking in the morning.

As I go upstairs, I hear sobbing coming from Jillian's room. I walk over to her door and go to open it but, it is locked tight. I contemplate knocking, but past experiences with Jillian being upset like she is stops me from going too far as she doesn't accept company when she is in this state. I sigh, and continue upstairs to my room. I guess I will deal with two problems in the morning, I think grimly to myself. I open my door and head inside, falling onto my bed in exhaustion. I almost forget to take off my weapons but, right as I do, I instantly fall asleep. That night, I dream that Jillian is killed by the thugs in the house while I stand there, helplessly watching, unable to pull myself out of the horrible nightmare.

When I awake in the morning, I find myself more fatigued than when I went to sleep and I consider going back to bed but, I manage to reluctantly pull myself out of it and get ready for the day. I get dressed and head downstairs to find Jillian preparing breakfast.

"Good morning." I say sleepily to her as I pour myself a small glass of juice and sit down at the table.

"Morning." Jillian replies as she tries to make oatmeal over one of those portable flame things.

"You're cooking oatmeal?" I say, "Are you trying to kill us?" I give a small chuckle after I say this.

"Oh, hush up and deal with it," Jillian retorts although I can tell she is slightly amused, "I figured cooking would help me take my mind of things." She says this time more seriously.

"You want to tell me about it?"

"No, I'm fine."

"You know you can tell me anything Jill." I push.

"I said I'm fine Alec, just drop it!" Jillian yells this time and spills some oatmeal on the floor. "Shit, there I go again screwing things up again like I did with Mom and Dad." She mumbles as she goes back to vigorously stirring the oatmeal.

"Is that what it is? Mom and Dad?"

"Mom, Dad, this whole goddamn world that we are living in." She says, her voice shaking. "I thought life was hard back when I had boy troubles and college, then the plague came and shit got ten times as hard."

I stare at Jillian with sympathy, however, she isn't done and I want her to get it off of her chest.

"When the plague came, I thought it wouldn't hit Michigan that hard for some reason. I came home just in case and then I fucked it all up by getting Dad killed protecting me from a stupid Walker. Then mom just went out there and killed herself right fucking next to him." Jillian is now shouting and I almost tell her to quiet down due to possible walkers lingering about but I don't want her to take her rage out on me. She continues, more softly this time, her voice barely audible, "It's all my fault that their dead and then when we almost died yesterday, I knew I was letting them down by getting us killed after I got them killed." She has all but stopped cooking and the oatmeal begins to burn. I walk over, blow out the flame, and gently sit her down.

"It wasn't your fault that they died." I say in the softest voice I can while she rests her head on my shoulder. " Dad died doing something he believed in, protecting his family, and how were you supposed to know that you were going to get attacked by a Walker? If you had died, he would have died in a sense with you." She starts sobbing and I rub her back to comfort her while I hug her. "Mom was always unwell with depression and when Dad died, she snapped. It is not your fault that she was ill and it is not your fault she died."

"I almost got us killed yesterday though." Jillian chokes out.

"To hell you did Jill, you are the reason we survived. You courage and your archery kept us alive and it gave me courage to fight back too. You did the world a huge favor by killing those assholes let me tell you." I tell her this, hoping to stop her from inflicting anymore self pity on herself.

"Thank you Alec," Jillian say, "You really have been there for me all along."

"And I plan to for the rest of our lives." I gently say, "Now, how about we eat that creation of yours before it crawls away." I walk over to what's left of the oatmeal, add some cinnamon and sugar because I know it's going to need it, and I ladle it into two bowls. Her eyes are red and puffy from crying and she still seems a little shaken but, she appears to be a lot better now that she has all of the things that have been bothering her off her chest.

As I hand Jillian a bowl, she calls me a dick over the oatmeal but we embrace and go on to eat out meal.

"No matter how hard things get, we will overcome it together." I say to her reassuringly. She smiles and we continue on to eating breakfast.

I think one thought during breakfast that worries me; Can we overcome anything? Or will things go downhill from here on out? I immediately push the thought away, but I know it will always linger in the back of my mind.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four:**

After Breakfast, I gave Jillian a couple of hours to calm down before bringing up some pressing matters that needed attending to. Walking into the living room, I found Jillian curled up on the couch looking at old family photo albums. Currently, she was looking at a picture of our family at Michigan's Adventure park riding one of those rides where they take your picture as you go down a scary hill so you can laugh at your reactions. In the picture, Dad was laughing one of his hearty laughs at Mom's horrified reaction. Behind them, Jillian is throwing her arms up with a huge grin on her face while I am sitting there glued to my seat in terror. It is amazing how similar me and Jillian look to one another. In the picture, we both have blonde hair, hers longer than mine of course, her deep blue eyes shining like the ocean while mine are more gray like a storm cloud. Back then, she used to tower over me at 5' 8'' but I have grown over the past couple years and now I'm the one that towers at 6'4''. Thinking back on the memory all those years ago makes me smile knowing that we used to be so carefree, not worrying about getting eaten or worrying about having enough food to last a few weeks. As much as I didn't want to, however, I needed to talk to Jillian about some things.

Approaching cautiously, I say, "I'm sorry to bother you Jill, but I need to talk about some important things right now if that is alright."

"Sure, I was just reminiscing on the good days." She replies, closing the book and pulling a blanket up to her chin.

"First things first, we need to decide where to go to get more food. I made a list and, if we ration, we can last a maximum of 3 weeks on what we have."

"Can we not go through any more houses?" She questions.

"I would rather not at the moment until we find out what we are dealing with when it comes to the gang." I grimly reply.

"Hmmm, what about the little party shop a few miles down the road?" Jillian suggests, "It's about 2 miles from here and 5 from Krupp's so I don't think that the gang would be willing to go that far for the moment.

"That could work, though I feel like it would have been pretty picked over since it is right off of the highway. We could give it a try though and, if it is unsafe or doesn't have anything worthwhile we can try some more houses that are out of the way as opposed to the ones we have been going to in town."

"Sounds like a plan." She says with a hint of her old self in her voice. "What's next on the agenda?" She says somewhat sarcastically.

I walk over to the window, and peek out of the curtain. I notice quite a few walkers in the area than usual, about 20, other than that, everything else is pretty calm. Carefully closing the curtain, I sit back down next to Jillian and say, "We have to find out more about this whole Atlanta business. I know that the CDC is stationed there and, if the rumors are true, they might have closed off the city to keep out the infection. We could finally be safe."

"What if it isn't safe though?" Jillian says trying to shoot the idea down. "We know from the news that the major cities were the first to go, who is to say that Atlanta isn't a red zone now like Flint or Detroit?"

"We have to hope Jill!" I say with my voice raised for some reason, I guess fatigue is getting to me, I continue, "This is the only thing that we have heard in months. We already know that Michigan has gone to shit and it fair to think that there is no where left to go but, I would rather make our chances heading for Atlanta than sitting around waiting to die from walkers or all the other crazy people out there." I am standing up again and I can feel myself getting overexcited about this whole thing but I am tired of just waiting for something to happen.

"I can see where you are coming from Alec, but what are supposed to do about food when we only have a little bit now. Or gas? I don't feel safe going to Speedway when it is in the center of the town." Jillian sits upright and gives me a very serious look, telling me that she has very many doubts on this matter.

"This is what I have in mind," I hurriedly say to her in hopes of changing her perspective, "If we can gather enough food from the corner store by the highway and a couple more houses we could have enough to last a month, month and a half. We could then wait a week or so and siphon gasoline from the cars everywhere so we wouldn't even have to go into town." My hopes begin to rise as I tell her my plan, I know it will work. I continue on, "Next, we could put our supplies in the back of Dad's truck and put a tarp over it someone sees inside of it they won't be as tempted to steal it from us. And, with the topper on, it would be protected from animals and rain." I finish telling her my plan and anxiously await it over for a few minutes while Jillian contemplates things.

"What about getting to Atlanta itself?" She says, "The roads are bound to be trashed with cars and other junk and we don't even know how to get there in the first place."

"We will manage around the roads, siphon more gas if we need to, and we have numerous maps to use." I answer. "Please Jill, I know this is a good choice and I know that we can get through this. Just please say yes, please?"

Jillian mulls it over for a bit and, to my joy, agrees.

"The only reason I'm agreeing to this is because I didn't give you a birthday present a few months ago and because I can't get a tan here to save my life." She lies with a wink.

"Thank you so much sis!" I exclaim , feeling as if I could start bouncing up and down like a little kid again, "You won't believe how much I love you right now, you will not regret this."

"I know I won't Alec, if you know it's the right thing to do then it must be." She gives me a hug and goes on to say, "You are the smarter one after all, Mr. I'm in the top ten!" She continues tease me and sticks her tongue out at me. I retaliate by hitting her with a pillow and we laugh for a good five minutes, not caring about the Walkers outside hearing us. It's nice to enjoy the little things.

After we re- gather our composure, we decide that tomorrow is when day we are going to start getting the supplies we need for our Atlanta road trip. Tomorrow is the day, I've decided, where our chance at for a new life will start to begin.


	5. Chapter 4 (Bonus)

**Chapter Four (Bonus):**

Lana sprints through the forest, branches catching in her black hair and thorns and other brambles inducing deep welts and cuts on her exposed skin, but she keeps running. Before the plague started, 17-year old Lana Harder was an aspiring model. Her dark skin tone, slender, athletic physique, and her unusual green eyes that are normally never seen on an African-American, gave her the perfect opportunity to try to go into modeling, however, since the world's gone to hell, she wishes she would have taken up karate or something that would give her an edge against the undead. Now, all around her, Walkers begin to congregate in masses beyond belief but, Lana continues to run.

"Shit," she curses with a winded tone, "how the hell are you going to get out of this one Lana?"

Lana continues to run, frantically in search of sanctuary, when, in the distance, she thinks she sees an old house. Yes, thinks to herself, if I can just get there I can-, her thoughts are cut short as she trips over an undead corpse crawling after her. Lana screams and tumbles to the ground while the gray, bloodied hands of what was a woman grabs her ankle an starts pulling it towards her mouth.

"Get the hell off of me you bitch!" Lana screams as she kicks the Walker in the face, all but breaking the woman's jaw. The Walker lets go but quickly starts coming after her again. Frantically, Lana pulls out her machete and hacks at the woman's skull until she is dead.

"Yeah!" Lana exclaims, covered in blood, "Take that you piece of shit!" Lana continues to gloat, giving the Walker woman the finger in the process, but her celebration is cut short as she realizes that, while she was killing the woman, dozens of Walkers have closed her in on all sides, trapping her.

"Damn," Lana says out loud as her previous excitement has all but faded to nothing, "We had a good chance and we blew it." She takes a quick glance around for a way out of this but, to her disappointment, she sees nothing but the walking husks of the undead. "Let's go out with a bang like we always have girl and let's take some of these fuckers down with us." Lana tells herself, trying to boost her moral. Lana readies her machete and focuses on the upcoming onslaught.

The first of the Walkers to reach her is what is left of a twenty year old construction worker, judging on his clothes. The Walker's face is all but decayed, with one eye missing and half of a nose chewed off.

"Aren't you just an ugly bastard." Lana grunts as she severs the man's arm as he reaches for her, she then pivots around, burying the machete into his skull.

"Wooo!" Lana exclaims, adrenaline coursing through her veins, "Who's next?" Lana continues to dispatch the undead around her as if she has imbued with some mystical fighting power. A few minutes pass and she has killed enough undead to give herself and opening through the horde. Seizing her chance, she begins sprinting, however, right as she thinks she is in the clear, Lana trips on an unseen root on the ground and twists her ankle.

"Ahhhhh, shit!" She screams in pain. Lana attempts to stand up but falls down from the blinding pain shooting up her leg. Looking around, Lana notices she has put some distance between herself and the undead but, she reckons that she has five minutes at most before they get to her.

"God, if you're up there, you have a really sick sense of humor." Lana mutters to herself. "Just this once, give me a solid. Let me live, please?"

With hope all but lost and the undead tide coming to consume her, Lana closes her eyes and begins to pray.


End file.
